289100 - Easy to do, and big rewards for morilla products : A lot of new customers will come !

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Guillaume TAUREL]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050318 Firefox/1.0.2
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050318 Firefox/1.0.2


Hello, here is the suggestion i wanna make to the developpement team :

First i wanted to say i'am not really a newbie. I'am 25 and got a pc since my
5th birthday. I used to make graphics under dos 3.1...

Today more and more people are using a seperate partition for their system and
for their data. Thay want to loose nothing if they have to format their
hardrives because of a virus or anything like that. So their data and a few WELL
CODED programs are installe on this "data partition".

Those programs are really good for one reason : if they loose everything on the
SYSTEM (OS) partition they can format, they wont loose anything in those WEEL
CODED programs. Why ?

Here the point i wanted to come : Thos programs are coded so they can work
without being re-installed after a windows reinstallation, and that all the data
they saved, they saved it in their OWN DIRECTORY ! SO no need to spend 2 hours
finding the files to save before maing a format, everything in the program folder.

An example will be more clear : I'am a user of Foxmail. This program is really
really usefull and full of use :)
I had to format a lot of time my SYSTEM partition (new OS, new hardware so often
OS reinstallation, new viruses get into the computer before antivirus know the
virus, etc.)
Each time my format was done, Wooo i was always happy not to have loose any
mail, any rules i've setup, any acccount informations, any adress book...

So i though it would be the same with mozilla products...The answer is no.

The problem is not really big with firefox where i just need to make regular
backup of my "Favorites", the rest is fast to configure.

But i was really disapointed when i install Thunderbird : The interface looks
really pretty and full of feature, but i finally got a pb : adress book, mail
settings and eamil database are not stored in firefox folder. That's a really
really bad point for Thunderbird guys. To make a backup of it, it's a real
nightmare (i spent 4 hours to make a partially good backup...).

So the only simple feature you should add to firefox and obviously to
Thunderbird is a box to tick during the first install : "Store all data in
Thunderbird/Firefox homer folder, don't store anything in documen and settings"

And let the other option where the settings are multiuser with documment and
settings (but i think you can keep the multi-user possibility even without
"documents and settings")

That's all, but beleive me if this option is added the popularity of those 2
excellent products won't stop growing. Thanks for your time listening advices of
a lasy custumer :)

TAUREL Guillaume

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Install the software
2.try to make a backup
3.good luck :)

Actual Results:  
My backup is never complete.(please read the full details)

Expected Results:  
Just store all informations/data in it's own folder.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

The correct place for the profile is the user Directory.
All Applications should and have to store their user-data there.
(Reasons: romaing profiles, Multi User systems.....)
If you want to have your user data on another location, you have to change the
OS user directory.

A "normal" user also doesn`t care where his profile is located.
If he wants to create a backup he will use a tool like :
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

An advanced user can also use "thunderbird -profilemanager" to create the
profile everywhere on his system. 
(btw: I use the original location profile location for Mozilla. I .zip the whole
profile with a batch file and move it to another system in my LAN).

-> wontfix 

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

The profile data is stored in <Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application
Data\Mozilla\Firefox>, according to Microsoft standards ... It's never stored
inside the program folder, otherwise you can't work with multiple users.

See <http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/1.0.html>